


Strike One

by Humanities_Handbag



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Accidents Happen, Angst, Blindness, Dorks in Love, F/M, Inevitable, Lot's of Love, Regular Salsa, So here that one is, Someone was bound to get hurt, Sparring, Strange Magic, Two Shot, Warnings Ignored
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:03:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5281319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humanities_Handbag/pseuds/Humanities_Handbag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We know what we’re doing." Marianne had told her sister, who had stared at them with an odd sort of fear from the shadows, biting her lip, wondering if worse could come from too much trust (ridiculous, really, for what came from trust but love alone?) "I control my sword. He controls his staff. We both have control. You don't have to worry.” </p><p>“The world isn’t a weapon, Marianne,” her sister had shuddered, looking at the shining metal at the eldest’s hip. “You can’t control what it’s going to do to you.”</p><p>A Story of Trust and Fighting and Love</p><p>Or, more aptly summarized; </p><p>Accidents Happen</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strike One

**Author's Note:**

> Even if you are no longer enemies, we must recognize that love cannot protect all, and even hero's slip. 
> 
> A Two Shot about accidents that are bound to happen.

From the moment she’d walked in, there had been nothing pressing down on her shoulders to assume fates aligned to take her into something unknown. Sudden.  _Different_. Because when the sky was blue and swords were sharp and smiles were light and followed with kisses there was very little to wonder about at all, and she took them all in with perfect breaths and a song playing on a loop in the back of her mind.

* * *

_“That’s the problem with you,” Dawn had told her once. “You don’t expect anything.”_

_“I only need to expect the important things. War, attacks. You know, Queen stuff.”_

_“You’re important too. What about you?”_

_“I’m not a Kingdom.”_

_“No. You’re a sister. And a daughter. You’ve got people who love you. Us. Bog. You’re important to us.”_

_“I’m not going anywhere, Dawn. I don’t need to expect anything.”_

* * *

“Welcome back,” he’d rumbled, as he always did, drawing her closer with a claw, rough lips against her temple. She swatted playfully, but dipped to give in a moment later, her own touching in happy salutations. “Yee’re early.”

“Got out faster than I thought it would. Thought I’d just pop by.” She shrugged, though her grin spoke for her, and her fingers twitching against a hilt screamed in volumes she daren’t reach. “I mean.. if that’s okay with you, oh Bog King.”

“Aye.  _Always_ , Tough Girl.”

“That’s what I thought. Now help me. I’ve got way too much adrenaline and old bigots make me want to hit something.”

He rolled eyes heavenward, mumbling out a weak curse, saturated in too much affection to be anything else. “ _Wee Beastie_ ,” he’d snarled, playing a light constellation against her arm with talons, and she’d replied with a light hum of triumph before he’d once more kissed her again, fangs catching her lip, nearly splitting the skin and she’d hummed against the quick flash of something that wasn’t pain but oh so close. “Tha throne room is all ours…” he’d muttered against her mouth. “Told everyone ta’ bugger off.”

“Well aren’t you the romantic.”

“I dui try.”

“Tease.” She leaned in for another quick peck, chaste and familiar. “Are you going to try and pummel me soon or not? I’ve had a really long day and I want to kick your ass.”

He spun his scepter through his fingers, fist already taking up residence on his waist, before bending into a bow, arm sweeping the air. “Wha’ tha lassie wants-”

“Oh shut up, you flirt.”

“I’m still winning.”

“In your dreams,  _Goblin_.”

“I won’t soon be fergetting that comment,  _Fae_.”

“Believe me, I know.”

He twirled his staff once more, a dramatic to the end, and she rolled her eyes, but passed him by. And the  _shng_  of a sword slicing air was enough for his own grin to turn venomous, stalking behind her with easy, echoing steps. 

The spar started before either had had a chance to adjust footing, identify surroundings, assess their opponent. She struck first, whirling on him, and he nearly missed in his surprise, staff checking upwards to catch the blow, and sparks flew.

“Getting slow, old man!”

And that had been it.

There were cackles and jibes and insults without a twinge of malice to set them on their edge. Just two people moving in a dance through the skies, circling chandeliers and twisting their heads to cut with the most delicious of smirks. Their exhaustion fumbled with blushes until neither could quite decide if it was the exertion or something pleasant and soft that had their necks and cheeks aflame.

“ _Maybe_ ,” he had huffed at one point, baring down on her sword where he’d trapped her, her arms near the floor and shivering, “ _if you jes’ gave up every now and again_ -”

“You take me for a fool, Bog King!” And with a clever push of legs and hands he was stumbling back, always astounded at the strength she held in willowy limbs and quiet weight. “Now!  _Prepare to meet thy doom_!”

“Yee’ve b-been reading too much… too much a’ that sappy stuff again.” He teased, snorting at the way her face, sheen and plum, twisted in offense.

“Dawn’s insistent. Sh-she likes someone to read to.” Was all he received through her pants.

“Oh sure. I think yee’re jes a  _romantic_  at heart.”

“I’m going to make you  _eat_ your words!”

“Then  _dui it_.” 

Her wings rushed her forward with a roar as fearsome as his own, but it flickered away in peals of laughter, her breath leaving in a shock when their bodies collided, pushing away with boots and claws. His staff at the ready, her sword already falling, both of them in a place of comfort where most would only see chaos.

* * *

_“What is it with you and chaos,” Marianne had once asked him, lying in bed bare except for the winding vines of his body sheltering hers._

_“Order is everything. Without it, there’s nothing.”_

_“Yeah. But, I mean, being without order isn’t so bad. Just letting loose every once in a while. Think about it this way, without chaos you wouldn’t have found me”. And she’d blushed at the mere thought of her words before stirring up courage to go on. “That’s something… right?”_

_“Aye. It is indeed, love.” And he’d kissed her, soft and sorrowful, and she didn’t quite know why. “But keeping ye here? That’s taken all the order in the world.”_

* * *

“Are ye meaning ta take it easy on me this time, love? Or are ye simply wearing down.”

“Maybe I’m just going easy on you, you ass.”

“Said the pot to the kettle.”

She emitted a keening guffaw, spinning on a toe to throw what weight she had onto a leg and stab forward, watching him stumble back, a thrill light in her chest. “See. Easy.”

“Yee’ll pay fer tha!”

“I can’t wait!” And she couldn’t. 

For all day it had been meetings and officials and listening to rumor after bias. For there was no one who could imagine a Kingdom where Goblins were strong enough to love or one where Fairies were weak enough to love them. She’d offered trade, alliance, armies, and yet their place was settled and they hadn’t budged. And though she knew one day they would, one day soon hopefully, there was pleasure in results of the immediate and lashing out to watch the stumbles and trips of your enemy. Bog faltered again, rocking on a clawed foot to avoid a nasty laceration, and her grin was malicious.

Immediate and wonderful.

And what was even better- unlike the stares and the scoffs of eyes on her, the opposition was quick and merciless, gaining back balance before twisting a weapon through fingers and slamming an artful arc through the air and rupturing the space into sparks.

“Hell of a day?” He asked through a puff of breath, swinging a back blow that she caught against the dulled edge of her sword. She swallowed back a pant.

“Yeah… you have n-no idea…”

“Meetings?”

“ _Four_.”

“Any success.”

The next blow came from her and it nearly sent his staff spinning from his hands. “You tell me?”

“Ah.” 

She growled against her next draw of the sword, but before she could let it land he met her in the middle and the two of them pressed their bodies upwards to try and make the other fall first. Her arms shook against strain, muscles taut and angry in their definition. Sweat rolled down her neck in pearls, cool and teasing. And though he didn’t show any shake, shiver or clue of wear, she could see the strain in his leer.

“Give… it…  _up_!”

“… don’t play me fer a fool, Princess…”

Her jaw was sore from pressure of locking, and his fangs glinted in their serrated glory. He got a burst of energy, a small spark of adrenaline, and weight shifted down. With a snarl her back was bending, breaths seeping between teeth. The blisters at her palms burned. Her legs protested, knees buckling. Neither made a sound besides short pants, groans, the slow, defeating whine that she nearly refused to let go but found its own way, his face erupting into a mishmosh of victory and something she’d dare to call _evil_.

Her sword glinted under spare lighting. Amber flashed with a poison all its own.

* * *

_“So dangerous,” Dawn had once told her after walking in, leaning against the wall to watch the two lovers prance on a blade._

_“We know what we’re doing. I control my sword.”_

_“The world isn’t a weapon, Marianne,” her sister had shuddered, looking at the shining metal at the eldest’s hip. “You can’t control what it’s going to do to you.”_

* * *

With a final sound of rage she shot up on her legs, forcing his staff off before he was rumbling out a curse and swiveling back. Arms shrieked in an agony of exertion and before she could do anything her sword had become lost in a battle for dominance and tumbled to the ground. She panicked, scrambling, limbs shooting out to try and grasp onto a nothingness that didn’t hold with a hope that the clatter was an alert because she had no time to-

* * *

_“I worry about you. You forget that he’s stronger.”_

_“We’re equals,” Marianne argued. Because they were. They always were._

_“You can’t control everything. He could hurt-”_

_“He would never, Dawn.” And she hadn’t meant to sound angry, but she was. Because how could she ever assume that Bog, with his shining blue eyes and soft spoken tongue and gentle smile, would do anything to her._

_Dawn merely shook her head, but there was no regret in her words. “Not on purpose. But he could. One day. Just please, at least try to be ready for it. Try to at least expect something. You’ll be safer.”_

_“I_ am _safe with Bog,” the future Queen nodded in her surety. “Always.”_

* * *

There was a whistle, pitched and static, followed by a cry. And it took time to discover that the sound had been her own. The Earth was suddenly spinning, tilting forward with a clang and a shout and a blurring buzz electrocuting the air and she wondered what had happened until she was falling and falling and falling and…

Maybe it had hurt. Or maybe it hadn’t. She couldn’t really remember it at all. Because one moment she was there, and the next she simply wasn’t. And people were calling her name, and the syllables were too many and too long and too loud and too awful to hear at once. Her head throbbed as it steadily filled with cotton, and she was sure that soon enough it would rupture from the pressure.

Because in one moment everything had gone from colors and lights and smells and sounds, and in the next it was all black.

A terrifying, perfectly  _awful_  black.

* * *

_“You know, Roland would never spar with me,” she tells him one day, fanning her wings in the sun and watching the light catch and bottle the color against the trees. He flinches, and though she’s still turned away she notices. “And I know I shouldn’t bring it up, because there’s no real reason to bring him up at all, but he wouldn’t. And I thought you should know. Because you do. And I’m grateful.”  
_

_His smile is softer then, shy and careful. “Ye know I’d always spar with ye, Tough Girl.”_

_“Yeah. I know. It’s just… Roland had reasons and I didn’t really believe them.”_

_“Didn’t…”_

_“He always told me that he was worried I’d get hurt. That he’d hurt me.” She shrugged. “It was a power play. I know that now. But then I thought that it was what he said. That he was worried he’d hurt me or something. And I didn’t fight. So thanks.”_

_“For?”_

_“For not being worried.”_

_There was a pause, long and stale, and she thinks at first that they’ve merely lapsed into comfortable silence until she sees his stare, amazed and guilty and positively radiating with protection. “What?”  
_

_“I worry.” He told her. “I worry all the time. That something will happen to ye. That I cannai stop it. That I’ll-”_

_“Bog, you’d never-”  
_

_“You cannai control everything, Marianne.”  
_

_“That’s right. I can’t. Because you’re going to control that. Because you wouldn’t hurt me. Ever.” A raised brow. “Right?”  
_

_And he’s shaking his head violently at that. “Never!”_

_“Good. Then that’s it. Because I trust you. And I know you’d never hurt me. Not ever. I trust you.”_

_“But I don’t trust me.” And he’d nodded to his staff, leaning against a tree, amber glinting like venom under the light of the sun. “That doesnai have a mind or a conscious or mercy. It duis what it likes.”  
_

_His hands were being grabbed before he’d had a chance to continue, and she’d guided them about her waist, claws sinking into the folds of her shirt, so close to breaking skin and tearing a Fairy to pieces. “You’d never hurt me,” she said again. “Because you love me. And that’s that.”_

_“Love…” he rasped, claws ticking a beat of something so close to a heart against the dip at her back, “Accidents happen.”_

* * *

When she wakes, and she does, though she hadn’t expected it and hadn’t remembered the fear that she wouldn’t all at once, it’s to the sound of her name. Lilting on a tongue she’s heard in passion, decorating her body with tiny scars around mouthfuls of skin and lectures of Kingdoms and creeds and days of old, it says her name as if it’s the only word in the world- a plead and a prayer all at once.

“ _Marianne!_ ”

When she wakes it’s to the feel of claws at her face, pricking thin skin with little and too much care. Tiny kisses pepper her cheeks, jaw, neck, apologies flowing easy and hot as molten silver and slicing as quick as its edge. “ _I never meant… I’m so, so sorry, love. I didn’t… oh thank tha gods, Marianne, I thought I’d… I don’t know what I would have done if I’d…”_

There’s something wet falling against her brow, followed by more kisses and a skin built of plates and scales, the ridge of his nose pressing into her hair, breathing her in as if he’s breathing in the world.

She blinks, hands moving to reach something, anything, and her limbs are heavy and raw. “Wha’…” she has to wet her lips, voice suddenly slow and lazy and without coordination. Her hand falls against his shoulder, but is replaced a moment later with rough, large ones winding through her own. “What… h-happened…” she manages to say. There’s another shudder of breath above her.

“ _It was foolish a’ me… I wasnaugh… I wasnai lookin’ when I struck. Ye were right there an ye didn’t see an yer sword was…”_ Another swallow. Marianne’s memory, though lost, tried to recall anything in the jumble of words, but could only pull up the image of a flash of gold getting closer and closer. “ _Hells_ , Marianne… I dunnai know what I’d do if I’d…” He kissed her again, the words too much, spilling over, and so he replaced them with lips to her temple and brow. 

She noticed his hands stayed far from the back of her head, but when her own reached to touch the spot he gently pulled them away. She didn’t ask why. He didn’t give an answer.

When she wakes it’s to him lying beside her, and she can feel him as he nudges closer. So relieved that she’s here -she’s  _here_ \-  that he simply can’t let go. And she’s bundled into arms, and suddenly her entire body, seemingly immobile on whatever has made her word fuzzy and slow, hardly matters when his arms are binding her against him and she’s finally able to burrow her face against his chest.

“I thought-” his hand slides up and down her spine between wings. “I _thought_ -”

She blinks again, wanting to tell him that accidents happen, she still trusts and loves and adores. Wanting to say to eyes as blue as freedom that there will be more spars, because he was right, they can’t control everything. And she’s here. And isn’t that all that matters.

She can’t catch blue. 

When she wakes she’s searching fruitlessly, her breaths turning into quick and desperate whines, looking for something that will show her what the world looks like. And he’s grabbing her fingers, begging and pleading through the wall she’s become trapped in.

“ _What’s wrong! Marianne, love, please tell me- what’s wrong!_ ” And she can hear his fear and frustration and guilt. Knows that his face has contorted and shifted. Can feel the rustle of shoulders and claws as they protect what they can but know they’ll never be enough.

And for now, it isn’t enough.

“I can’t see-” She’s gasping out, for all the world is black and she’s forgotten how to breathe into nothingness. “ _I can’t see…”_

He holds her tighter after, and she clings to him. Because she’s trapped in a place with no sunshine or Dawn or Bog, where they’re there but not at all. And she holds on until scales cut her skin beneath thin clothes and she can feel nothing but him and him alone, closing her eyes even if it doesn’t matter and wishing that when she opens them there will be something to assure her she’s free.

* * *

_“Please be careful,” Dawn told her._

_“Will you stop worrying, already?”  
_

_“I have good reason. It would only take one wrong move, you know. And then everything could change.”  
_

_“Nothing’s gonna change, Dawn.”  
_

_“You don’t know that.”  
_

_“I do. Because I’m not getting hurt. Because we know what we’re doing.”  
_

_“And what if you do get hurt,” she’d whispered, azure eyes cautious in their wisdom and grieving in their doubt. “What if everything does change.”  
_

_“It won’t.”_

* * *

When she wakes it’s to darkness. And when there’s enough courage and false hope to open her eyes once again there’s darkness there too. And her sobs against his chest are louder and pinpricks to her skin are fiercer and the universe is swallowing her whole.

And so Marianne holds on. As tightly as she can as the night turns black and the sun rises once more and she’s trying so hard to merely imagine it all, terrified of forgetting and knowing that she will. 

“ _It’s going ta be alright_ ,” she can hear above her head, and no longer knows who his comforts are for. “ _I promise… I promise ye it’ll be alright_.”

She merely closes her eyes and hopes for a world where promises are without accident and control is without chaos and darkness will allow for her to let go as she grips tighter onto the only ground she has and wonders how long before she can see a sun again. 

 

 


End file.
